NSA uses supercomputers to crack Web encryption, files show

9:52 AM,
Sep. 6, 2013

This June 6, 2013, photo shows the sign outside the National Security Agency campus at Fort Meade, Md.

Written by

Michael Winter
USA TODAY

U.S. and British intelligence agencies have cracked the encryption designed to provide online privacy and security, documents leaked by former intelligence analyst Edward Snowden show.

In a clandestine, decade-long effort to defeat digital scrambling, the National Security Agency, along with its British counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), have used supercomputers to crack encryption codes through "brute force" and have inserted secret "back doors" into software with the help of technology companies, The Guardian,
The
New York Times
and ...